Job Alert – Brussels back to School: Old Problems, new Candidates

Brussels has now gone back to full swing after the summer recess with a multitude of major annual receptions – especially the Germans enjoyed meeting over sausages at the Thuringia summer reception, and a bit less traditionally at Innogy’s, BMW’s and Burda’s events. Some of them had reason to celebrate: German MEP Manfred Weber and leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), just announced his candidacy for becoming the next European Commission President.

The party mood is deceiving, however: big issues are on the horizon. The European Parliament just approved, with an overwhelming majority, a proposal to trigger Article 7 against Hungary next week – this could lead to sanctions against Hungary and even a temporary loss of voting rights in the Council. Also, the Parliament finally passed its amendments on the much-contested copyrights proposal, dealing amongst other issues with remuneration of online content and licensing – but this text still needs to go a long way through the trilogue negotiations. Still not moving forward are the debates around Brexit. Before summer, the upcoming October EU summit had been named as the deadline for coming to an agreement on the divorce terms. Unsurprisingly, both sides are now rather aiming at November. 

The most alarming development from the EU’s perspective, however, is Italy’s budget: mixed messages from the Italian government, including rather flexible views on the EU’s 3% deficit limit, leading to fears that Italy is on the verge of becoming the next Greece. We will have a few more weeks to guess and worry.

Talking about money: the EU, with its various money-laundering policy reforms, has a real problem with foreign cash inflow. A European Commission expert group just had to admit that „there may be gaps in the EU’s supervisory framework“. Most revealing proof of the problem is a recent case with Dutch ING bank – a women’s lingerie trader, of all businesses, apparently did not wash any dirty underwear but managed to launder 150 million Euro through the bank’s books – now resulting in a hefty fine 775 million fine for ING. Definitely some ammunition for the upcoming EP elections.

With all this on his plate, Commission President Juncker just gave his annual State-of-the-Union speech – his last one, with clear words, especially on immigration, nationalism, and Brexit. But words are easily spoken if the consequences are for the next Commission to deal with.
If you feel up to getting yourself into this kind of world, find some jobs and as usual more on politjobs.eu!

Irina Michalowitz

Featured Job: Volt seeks Campaign Manager
Brussels | Apply by: ongoing | Start: Early September 2018 | Full Time

Volt is a pan-European, progressive movement aiming to revolutionize the way politics is done and to change the future of Europe, for the better. Volt was started by a group of passionate youngsters – no former politician, no rich businessman – as a reaction to the Brexit and the nationalist trends that are rising on our continent. ➡See full job ad

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